Ebook: A History Of The Wife

Is the wife an endangered species? -- Wives in the ancient world: Biblical, Greek, and Roman models -- Wives in Medieval Europe, 1100-1500 -- Protestant wives in Germany, England, and America, 1500-1700 -- Republican wives in America and France -- Victorian wives on both sides of the Atlantic -- Victorian wives on the American frontier -- The woman question and the new woman -- Sex, contraception, and abortion in the United States, 1840-1940 -- Wives, war, and work, 1940-1950 -- Toward the new wife, 1950-2000.;How did marriage, considered a religious duty in medieval Europe, become a venue for personal fulfillment in contemporary America? How did the notion of romantic love, a novelty in the Middle Ages, become a prerequisite for marriage today? And, if the original purpose of marriage was procreation, what exactly is the purpose of marriage for women now? Combining "a scholar's rigor and a storyteller's craft"(San Jose Mercury News), distinguished cultural historian Marilyn Yalom charts the evolution of marriage in the Judeo Christian world through the centuries and shows how radically our ideas about marriage have changed. For any woman who is, has been, or ever will be married, this intellectually vigorous and gripping historical analysis of marriage sheds new light on an institution most people take for granted, and that may, in fact, be experiencing its most convulsive upheaval since the Reformation.